The present invention is directed to N-demethylefrotomycin, having the formula (I) below; and its preparation by means of microbial glycosylation of mocimycin, having the formula (II) below, using efrotomycin-producing microbial species ATCC 53758.
Efrotomycin, which possesses a methyl group on pyridone nitrogen, but is otherwise of the formula (I), is the subject of Maiese et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,024,251. Mocimycin is the subject of monograph 6083, Merck Index, 10th Edition, Merck & Co., Rahway, N.J., 1983, p. 891. The corresponding pyridone-N-methylated compound otherwise corresponding to mocimycin is known as aurodox; see monograph 887, loc. cit., p. 127. ##STR1##